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Proto Indo European is interesting yet a lot of the info I find on it is some new age BS usually and sadly

Yeah, you tend to have to go down the journal rabbitholes to find neat stuff. I came across a really neat article a few months ago (one of the journal publishers had a free weekend for downloading electronic copies of their history/archaeology journals and I, ah, indulged myself) looking at reconstructions of PIE military/etc terms (weapons, conflict-related terms, poetic diction, etc) and trying to tentatively reconstruct a bit of what the original speakers' culture may have been like.

It's both neat how much can receive fairly educated guesses from what we have, but also sad at how wispy and antiseptic the results are when you think about how complex any culture extant or extinct can get. I can dig up the article if you're curious.

I wonder if early modern/modern city water basically being composed of liquid death as often as not informed that sort of thing. "Why, if water isn't safe to drink on Broad Street in the glorious modern year 1854, it must have been most horrific indeed in medieval times!"

I was ordered out and required to fall in line with the company and drill, but I refused. They tried to make me and I sat down on the ground. They reminded me of the orders to shoot me, but I told them my God said to fear them not that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather to fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The company was then ordered to fall back eight paces, leaving me in front of them. They were then ordered by Colonel Kirkland to ‘Load; Present arms; Aim,’ and their guns were pointed directly at my breast. I raised my arms and prayed: ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.’ Not a gun was fired. They lowered them without orders, and some of them were heard to say that they ‘could not shoot such a man.’ The order was then given, ‘Ground arms.’

After weeks of such punishment, William Hockett was captured at Gettysburg and released to live in Philadelphia. He remained there until the end of the war.

According to IR legend, during the 1982 Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher persuaded Francois Mitterand to prevent the sale of additional Exocet anti-ship missiles to Argentina by personally implying that the missiles posed such a severe operational risk to the British task force that her government would see no alternative but to deploy nuclear weapons against Argentina.

this almost certainly didn't happen but it is a very Thatcher thing to do

According to IR legend, during the 1982 Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher persuaded Francois Mitterand to prevent the sale of additional Exocet anti-ship missiles to Argentina by personally implying that the missiles posed such a severe operational risk to the British task force that her government would see no alternative but to deploy nuclear weapons against Argentina.

this almost certainly didn't happen but it is a very Thatcher thing to do

Most countries are pretty forgiving when their allies sell decisive weapons to nations they're at war with.

The Difference Between Massachussetts Bay Colony and Rhode Island: Mary Dyer, a friend of Anne Hutchinson and recent convert to Quakerism, was hanged on Boston Common on this date in 1660.

From Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates":

In The Witches of Eastwick, a novel set in a fictional, seemingly dull Rhode Island village, John Updike tips his hat to Rhode Islands weirdo founders. Satan moves to town and wonders why the alluring local witches live in such a humdrum place. “Tell him Narragansett Bay has always taken oddballs in,” says one witch to another, “and what’s he doing up here himself?”

That said, Williams’s colony is hardly utopia. There is as much internecine squabbling— if not more— going on there as there is in Massachusetts.

In 1672, the sixty-nine-year-old Williams himself will wage a vicious war of words with the colony’s Quakers because he believes they have “set up a false Christ.” The Quaker belief in the “God within” each person is anathema to a Bible-based Calvinist like Williams, who writes in his screed against Quaker founder George Fox, "George Fox Digg’d Out of his Burrowes", “they preached the Lord Jesus to be themselves.” Williams even holds a three-day-long debate in Newport with three Quakers. “The audience, mostly Baptists and Quakers,” writes Perry Miller, “heckled him with cries of ‛old man, old man,’ and whispered, after he had on the first day shouted himself hoarse in order to get any hearing, that he was drunk.” (More than three decades after John Cotton accused Williams of missing God’s point back in Salem when he smote him with laryngitis, he was once again struck dumb during a spree of punditry.)

Here is the important difference between Massachusetts Bay and Narragansett Bay. Quakers such as Mary Dyer are hanged in Boston Common. In Rhode Island, there is bickering, but there is no banishing. There are mean-spirited spiritual debates, but no forced and freezing hikes of exile. (excerpt)

I want things like that to read the way that the bricks in sidewalks all over Europe do. "Here lived [name], - deported 1942, murdered in Auschwitz on 18.9.1943," is much more effective and meaningful in my opinion than however large a statue without any information.

"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN

I just learned that those brass or whatever bricks all over... all over everywhere I've been in Europe at least... have a name! They're called stolpersteins and were created by Gunter Demnig.

I don't know if anyone else who isn't an EU resident has noticed them when traveling to Europe, but they're incredibly powerful. At least to me, because you'll be walking down some alley in some town and then there's a single brass cobblestone and it lists the name of someone who was deported and murdered.

"Stolperstein" means "stumbling stone," which I also find... apt? I suppose?

"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN

they're super powerful and emotive and their very understatedness is part of that, imo

I didn't know they were called that, but you're absolutely right! It's the fact that they're just there, and you glance to see what it is and realize so quickly. It's not the same project but I felt that way about all the buildings I saw in certain towns/cities with plaques on doorways or walls. It really brings to bear the width and breadth of the tragedy in a way that a number in a textbook doesn't.

"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN

Roger Williams asked the two Narragansett sachems, the elderly Canonicus, and his younger nephew, Miantonomi, for permission to settle. Williams drew up a deed and the two men signed with their marks— a bow for Canonicus and an arrow for Miantonomi. Williams was proud of the fact that he did not buy the land. Rather it was a gift and a grant. He later boasted, “It was not price nor money that could have purchased Rhode Island. . . . Rhode Island was purchased by love.”

The site of the original settlement is preserved in downtown Providence as the Roger Williams National Memorial. There, the compass and sundial Williams probably carried with him on the traumatic nature hike that got him here are on display. (excerpt)

—Sarah Vowell in "The Wordy Shipmates"

A Gift and A Grant Day of Note: Narragansett Chief Sachem Canonicus, friend of Roger Williams and ally of the British during the Pequot War, died on this date in 1647. (this date being Yesterday)

DaMoonRulz on June 2016

"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are smarter than one man. How's that again? I missed something" Lazarus Long

So one hundred years and four days ago, the Battle of Jutland concluded, the largest naval battle of WW1 and the only one in which Battleships came to blows. The outcome was inconclusive; Germany sunk more tonnage, but had failed to cripple the British fleet or break the blockade, and would never again risk their irreplaceable fleet in such a grand battle.

Fast forward to four days ago:

HMS Caroline, light cruiser and last surviving participant in Jutland, has opened as a museum ship in Belfast

if we're going to talk about naval warfare, we gotta discuss the most important and least decisive battles of the last 300 years
The Dual of the Ironclads

Monitor, to the surprise of Virginia's crew, had emerged from behind the Minnesota and went straight for the approaching Virginia and positioned herself between her and the grounded Minnesota, preventing the Confederate ironclad from further engaging the vulnerable wooden ship at close range. At 8:45 am Worden gave the order to fire where Greene fired the first shots of the battle between the two ironclads which harmlessly deflected off the Confederate ironclad. During the battle Monitor fired solid shot, about once every eight minutes, while Virginia fired shell exclusively.[108] The ironclads generally fought at close range for about four hours, ending at 12:15pm,[109] [l] ranging from a few yards to more than a hundred. Both ships were constantly in motion, maintaining a circular pattern. Because of Virginia's weak engines, massive size and weight and with a draft of 22 ft (6.7 m), she was slow and difficult to maneuver, taking her half an hour to complete a 180-degree turn.[111]

During the engagement, Monitor's turret began to malfunction, making it extremely difficult to turn and stop at a given position, so the crew simply let the turret continuously turn and fired their guns "on the fly" as they bore on Virginia. Several times, Monitor received direct hits on the turret, causing some bolts to violently shear off and ricochet around inside. The deafening sound of the impact stunned some of the crew, causing nose and ear bleeding.[112][113] However, neither vessel was able to sink or seriously damage the other. At one point, Virginia attempted to ram, but only struck Monitor a glancing blow and did no damage. The collision did, however, aggravate the damage to Virginia's bow from when she had previously rammed Cumberland. Monitor was also unable to do significant damage to Virginia, possibly due to the fact that her guns were firing with reduced charges, on advice from Commander John Dahlgren, the gun's designer, who lacked the "preliminary information" needed to determine what amount of charge was needed to "pierce, dislocate or dislodge iron plates" of various thicknesses and configurations.[56][114] [m] During the battle Stodder was stationed at the wheel that controlled the turning of the turret but at one point when he was leaning against its side the turret received a direct hit directly opposite to him which knocked him clear across the inside, rendering him unconscious, at where he was taken below to recover and relieved by Stimers.[106][115]

The two vessels were pounding each other at such close range, they also managed to collide with one another at five different times.[116] By 11:00 am Monitor's supply of shot in the turret had been used up. With one of the hatches to the gun ports damaged and jammed shut she hauled off to shallow waters to resupply the turret and effect repairs to the damaged hatch, which could not be repaired. During the lull in the battle Worden climbed through the gun port out onto the deck to get a better view of the overall situation. Virginia, seeing Monitor turn away turned her attention to the Minnesota and fired shots that set the wooden vessel ablaze, also destroying the nearby tugboat Dragon. When the turret was resupplied with ammunition Worden returned to battle with only one gun in operation.[117]

Towards the end of the engagement, Worden directed Williams to steer the Monitor around the stern of Confederate ironclad, where Lieutenant Wood fired his 7-inch Brooke gun at the vessel's pilothouse, striking the forward side directly beneath the sight hold, cracking the structural "iron log" along the base of the narrow opening just as Worden was peering out.[118] Worden was heard to have cried out, My eyes—I am blind! Others in the pilothouse had also been hit with fragments and were also bleeding.[119] Temporarily blinded by shell fragments and gunpowder residue from the explosion and believing the pilothouse to be severely damaged, Worden ordered Williams to sheer off into shallow water, where Virginia with her deep draft could not follow. There Monitor drifted idly for about twenty minutes.[120] At the time the pilothouse was struck Worden's injury was only known to those in the pilothouse and immediately nearby. With Worden severely wounded, command passed to the Executive Officer, Samuel Greene. Taken by surprise and confused he hesitated briefly and was undecided as to what action to take next,[119] but after assessing the damage soon ordered Monitor to return to the battle area.[106][117][121]

Shortly after Monitor withdrew , Virginia had run aground at which time Commander Jones came down from the spar deck only to find the gun crews not returning fire. Jones demanded to know why and was briefed by Lieutenant Eggleston that powder was low and precious and given Monitor's resistance to shot after two hours of battle, maintained that continued firing at that point would only be a waste of ammunition.[26] Virginia soon managed to break away and headed back towards Norfolk, believing that Monitor had withdrawn from battle. Greene, now in command, did not pursue Virginia[122] and, like Worden, was under orders to stay with and protect the Minnesota,[123] an action for which he was later criticized.

Why was the battle so significant? As soon as that battle occurred, every single other navy in the world was rendered completely irrelevant as a result of the massive technological leap. A single ironclad could destroy a blockade, and 5 of them could take on an entire armada with minimal losses and damage.